I must apologise for the severe lack of blogging which has taken place at this blog over the past few weeks. I confess that I have never liked the month of January, since childhood having found it the most depressing month of the year, and these days my January is a complete and utter write-off by virtue of the fact that I am obliged to spend it in Wantage.

I could write at great and tedious length about how much I hate the town of Wantage. If you saw it yourself, you might not think there was anything particularly objectionable about it, but if I add it up now I have spent no fewer than 14 weeks in this place over the course of the past few years, and it has begun to become wearing. The attractions of Wantage are severely limited, the highlight being a small branch of Waitrose which stocks an extensive selection of approximately six different sandwiches. Compare this to the even smaller branch of Boots, which stocks approximately three different sandwiches, and you have covered the entire lunchtime eating possibilities of the town in one fell swoop. That is to say, there is also an independent sandwich shop where in days gone by I confess that I have made the occasional purchase, but a colleague subsequently pointed out some of their rather unhygienic food practices to me, and after that I began to view it more as a health hazard than a nutritional opportunity. Apart from the afore-mentioned shops, the town boasts a small newsagents which admittedly sells Wispas, a statue of Alfred the Cake, and the only hotel I have encountered in my entire life that I would refuse to stay in ever again. Impressive. (more…)

Tonight I went out for a sort of reunion with some of the people I work with. It may seem a bit strange to have a reunion with people who still work in the same office as you, but the nature of our job is that we spend precious little time in our office at all, and therefore see each other rather infrequently. There were seven of us who started together three years ago this coming September as accountancy trainees. Two have bitten the dust along the way; one girl disappearing in mysterious circumstances, and another guy being sacked for total incompetence. The five of us who remain have seen each other less and less often as time has gone by, and seeing as we’re now all on the verge of qualifying and becoming fully fledged ACAs, now seemed like a good time to get together and catch up on our future plans. (more…)

As me and two suitcases collapsed onto a train out of Marylebone yesterday evening, I was unable to stop myself exclaiming out loud; “Today has been an absolute bloody disaster!”

The man whom I had just sat down next to gave me a funny look. “There’s always tomorrow,” he said. I was unsure whether he meant that in a consolatory way or not. (more…)